Slughorn Notices
by adaon45
Summary: Slughorn is saddened by the rupture in the friendship between his two star sixth-year Potions students.


Slughorn Notices

_Disclaimer: Not mine, alas. Thank you, JKR._

From behind his desk he has a good view of them, the two stars of his sixth-year Potions class. Both work near the front of the room, though at opposite ends—the girl with dark-red hair to the left among the Gryffindors, the black-haired boy on the far right with the Slytherins. Against a backdrop of frowning, grunting, sweating, and softly swearing classmates, all struggling to concoct tricky potions, the boy and girl move with the easy grace of ballet dancers, their movements deft and precise, their faces absorbed yet serene. Sometimes the girl smiles as her creations bloom rainbow-hued steam; the boy pauses to scribble notes in the margin of his textbook.

Only when they are not brewing do they look unhappy, discontent. As they are setting up or repacking their equipment, if they finish before the bell or have a moment to spare during class, one will frequently gaze at the unseeing other. The girl's expression in particular wrenches the professor's heart; he has seen her regarding the boy with such sadness, such a sense of loss in her green eyes, that Slughorn is surprised the boy does not lift his head in obedience to that importunate gaze. But the boy looks sad too; several times Slughorn catches him looking toward the girl as she tends her cauldron with a startlingly adult expression of naked, frustrated longing.

They had been unlikely friends, the Muggleborn Gryffindor girl and the Slytherin boy, since their arrival in the castle, but something has changed. This year they do not speak, they no longer walk together, when they look up at the same time they assume carefully blank expressions and weave elaborate dances of actions that avoid acknowledging each other's presence.

Slughorn sighs when he sees this. He is self-aware enough to realize that little generally bothers him if his own needs are met, if he has plenty of velvet smoking-jackets, candied pineapple, and well-connected former students. Yet he cannot help being distressed by the newly-hewn chasm between his two star pupils; he cannot help feeling disappointed at the loss of a possible romance he was secretly hoping for, the kind of story to uplift a troubled generation, a bond between young people from warring houses resembling that tale by the Muggle playwright he enjoys reading, the one about Romeo and Juliet. Of course, Slughorn would prefer a less tragic ending, but here the ending has turned sour before the story has even properly begun.

It's true that, if one is judging by looks alone, the boy is no Romeo. He's skinny and pale and his inky hair could use more washing. Still, with proper care and feeding he could turn into a distinguished man, with a dashing sort of piratical darkness—and, anyway, what has come between him and the girl apparently has nothing to do with personal appearance.

Could their rupture be caused by the lurking third member in the cast of characters, the Gryffindor boy with the stand-up black hair who also gazes at the girl with frustrated longing? He and two of his closest friends—the aristocratic pureblood who should have been in Slytherin, and the quiet studious boy with the prefect's badge—sit near the girl's desk; though not quite on the same level as the class's stars, they are the most competent of the other students. The boy with the stand-up hair has become noticeably less cocksure and more gentle this year; whenever he is kind to anyone he glances over at the girl as if begging her to notice. But Slughorn suspects that her heart is not yet his, and that what she mourns about the Slytherin boy also has little to do with romance, and everything to do with friendship. Friendship lost, friendship somehow betrayed.

It is, after all, a dark time, a time of increasing divisions, angers, fears, hatreds. The school is not immune to these disturbing currents from the outside world; indeed Slughorn fears that his house of Slytherin is becoming a recruiting ground for the new ugliness. Yes, Slughorn is worried, more than he will ever admit except when he notes the sad break between a Gryffindor and a Slytherin who had once been friends. The professor feels vaguely responsible for it all, for the criminal rise of a despot who had once been a slickly charming Slytherin boy; could Slughorn have stopped him somehow? But who knew at the time just how bad he would become? Slughorn is as much a snob as any Slytherin, but he cannot understand this prejudice against Muggleborns; look at the Gryffindor girl, so pretty and talented and funny; a world without her would be a world without sunlight and cheeky jokes. But what was brewing in the world right now, inside the school and out—brewing like the most deadly of potions—would spell the end of innocence. And so many students in his house were simmering with these barely contained passions, this violence; the inky-haired potions star himself had an undeniable flair for dark magic. Should Slughorn talk to him about it? Should he try to deflect his Slytherins from such evil paths? Or should he just keep his head down and comfort himself with small luxuries and gourmet food, trying to forget the strained silence between his star students that seemed so ominous a sign of storms to come?

I am a selfish old man, thought the professor, I have never myself found true love or genuine companionship. I am not bad but rather lazy in goodness, not cruel but rather slothful in self-sacrifice. But even I would exert myself if I knew how to help, if I knew some magic that would make the green eyes and the black find each other across the room, that would make the one gaze at the other again in perfect friendship.


End file.
